Jayce Build Guide by MRN.ecco

Introduction

Hello! I appreciate your interest in my Jayce guide! I am Tyler "ecco" Spesick and am the former mid player for the former LCS teams "Team MRN" and "Team Velocity eSports!"

Jayce has always been a very interesting and unique champion who has spiked my interest. He fits my style extremely well due to his safe nature and high amount of poke. What makes him so unique though is that he is also diverse enough to go deep into a fight with an insane amount of burst with Hyper Charge in close-range combat. He is a very fun and fulfilling champion once you get the hang of him so I suggest you give him a try and follow my guide to play him to the maximum of your potential!

Pros/Cons

Pros

1. /Extremely/ Fun
2. Safe Laning
3. Situational strong laning.
4. Insanely strong AoE poke.
5. Versatile and fulfilling game-play.
6. High, close-range burst in mid to late game that scales well.

Cons

1. Is very un-impactful in games where team is behind.
2. Very susceptible to burst.
3. Isn't a play-maker or game-changer like Ahri/Syndra/Zed.

Team-Comps

Jayce is a very versatile champion and therefore works well in almost every composition. His kit is just /so/ versatile. It is insane when I think about his kit just incredibly strong it is and how he really is the jack of all trades. He works fairly well with dive comps due to his high up front damage with his Acceleration Gate into Shock Blast combo and then following up with To The Skies! and Hyper Charge. He works well in this style of comp very well but he excels to the best of his abilities in a composition where his team can plop themselves in front of a turret and reign hell onto the opposing team with a metric ton of poke.

An ideal composition could insist of Rumble, Jarvan IV, Jayce, Varus, and Sona. This comp is just perfect for Jayce. Varus compliments his poke fantastically (he should go the Lancelot build [All damage no attack-speed]), Sona is there for a little bit of poke and good sustain, and then Jarvan and Rumble can go engage onto an extremely weakened team and set up an amazingly strong team-fight. There is also a decent amount of disengage if the opposing team tries to force it before your team is ready. Acceleration Gate by itself is an amazing disengage and then you Varus' Ultimate Chain of Corruption and then other moves if they are needed as well. It's just an overall very versatile, poke-focused composition that compliments Jayce perfectly!

Spells

Ignite and Flash are /the/ summoners to go on Jayce. He has so much burst and bullying potential in lane that having ignite really gives him the best possible chance to snowball. It will also help his dueling ability, which is already exceptionally strong, as well as helping with bursting champions in team-fights. Only in very rare situations would I change ignite and if I did it would most likely be in a very niche situation such as against a Morgana and Rammus where I would take Cleanse instead.

Runes

9x 9x 5x 4x 1x 2x

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Greater Mark of Attack Damage Greater Seal of Armor Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Greater Quintessence of Life Steal

I run standard AD carry runes on because early on in lane I treat him like one. I start with a Doran's Blade as well as a Health Potion to give him the strongest laning early on that I possibly can. In conjunction with my 4% lifesteal gained from runes, this will give me roughly 8 health back per auto-attack which is a lot. Then if I have a bad trade I can just use my health potion to gain it all back!

The only thing that isn't universally accepted would be the glyphs section of these runes. I don't run full magic resist blues because the extra bit of mana-regeneration helps a ton (definitely when I am starting out with an aggressive item like Doran's Blade. It just makes my trading a little bit worse and makes me a little bit more susceptible to burst to give me a couple extra spells in lane. Because my trading in lane is already so strong at early levels I believe that this is a fine trade to make!

Masteries

These are the masteries that I have been running on Jayce since the season 4 patch. I get the best stuff that I can for damage and sustain through the offensive masteries while following it up with the core of the first few tiers of the utility tree. I try and give myself a little bit of everything here with this mastery setup. Currently I am not 100% sure if it the most optimal setup but I have had a lot of success with it. If I come across a more successful one in my journeys than I shall update it!

Skill Sequence

This ability set up is something that I would really never change. You maximize your damage potential in lane while giving you the strongest mid-game damage and poke potential. There really isn't a reason in my mind to change this skill ability at all.

Hextech Capacitor (Passive) Hextech Capacitor is a pretty awesome passive. It is pretty much as basic as they come. You change forms. You move faster. That's pretty much it. It helps for running away, chasing down, kiting, etc. It's a very strong passive that is good at what it does; making you move faster!

To the Skies!/Shock Blast To The Skies! and Shock Blast are what consists of Jayce's Q. To start off, I'll discuss To The Skies!. It is a pretty amazing ability that does a pretty good chunk of damage and slow in a small AoE. There really isn't a lot to this ability either. It is the start of your combo when in your melee form and can also be used as wave clear. Shock Blast is arguably /the/ core ability on Jayce. It is what makes his laning so safe and consistent as well as giving him extremely strong poking/sieging power. It isn't the most forgiving skill-shot in the game as it isn't a very large skill-shot but with a good amount of practice you should be able to land it fairly consistently. You can use this ability raw to poke in lane as well as clear out minions faster when you're wanting to shove it. Usually this ability is used in conjunction with Acceleration Gate which increases the damage on the ability, makes it shoot further & faster, as well as makes the skill-shot itself wider.

Lightning Field/Hyper Charge Lightning Field is a fairly boring ability. Its passive is that Jayce gains back mana while auto-attacking in hammer form (6 mana at rank 1 which is what it will be for the majority of the game) which helps but it is just meh. Nothing special really. Then the AoE damage around you is pretty negligible until max rank where it can do a mediocre amount of damage. It only costs 40 mana which is makes it decent for helping with wave-clearing while giving you a stack for your Tear of the Goddess. Mostly activate this ability when AoEing down minions or fighting a champion in melee range. It doesn't do a whole lot but it does a little bit which is more reason than enough to spam it for the low cost of 40 mana. Hyper Charge is the most broken ability on Jayce in my opinion. The tower melting potential it gives as well as champion melting potential is plain bonkers. There isn't a lot of strategy to this ability except to get the maximum efficiency out of it you should activate right after a raw auto-attack to get 4 autos off as quickly as possible.

Thundering Blow/Acceleration Gate Thundering Blow is a very strong ability with a good amount of utility. The damage on it has been nerfed fairly hard a long time ago but it still does decent damage. It is also magic-damage which is a nice little touch to help Jayce's mid-game strength. Typically you use this as an execution move in duels/team-fights but you can also use it to peel champions off of you as well as re-positioning them. An example would be if you were all-ining your lane opponent you could flash behind them and then use Thundering Blow to knock them further away from their tower, giving you a much higher chance of gaining the kill. Acceleration Gate is a very strong ability that is mostly used in conjunction with Shock Blast. To use the combo properly, you should always Shock Blast first and then Acceleration Gate immediately after directly in front of your champion. This will make it incredibly difficult for the opponent to predict where you are shooting it, thus giving you the highest chance of the ability connecting.

Mercury Cannon/Mercury Hammer Mercury cannon is a very simple move. You switch stances as well as give yourself a brief buff depending on which stance you are switching into. The little bit of armor/mr you gain from switching into hammer form is nice as it makes you a bit tankier and will be very efficient in duels. Switching to your Cannon gives you a debuff on your first auto-attack that will reduce their armor/mr (25% at max rank) which is pretty substantial.

Items

With the runes that we're running on Jayce, it is most efficient to have our starting items that of an adc. It gives you a ton of sustain in the lane, good damage, as well as a very large health pool. Health potion gives you a bit of sustain for if you take a good chunk of damage and then the warding totem gives you a brief amount of vision.
The core items I run on Jayce are very standard. Manamune is typically rushed first because it helps you stack it as quickly as possible, gives you a large mana-pool early (more harass available then), and also a large amount of damage. Overall this item feels like it was made for Jayce so get that sucker fast!

I then typically follow up Manamune with The Brutalizer. Brutalizer is a very strong early to mid-game item on Jayce because it gives him everything he needs. A pickaxe's worth of attack damage with a hint of armor penetration and a good amount of cdr. CDR is fantastic on Jayce because it allows him to be more mobile since he can switch through his stances quicker, shoot off more Shock Blast and Acceleration Gate combos, and overall just use more of his abilities quicker!

Finally, I complete my core items with Last Whisper. Once mid-game hits and you complete Last Whisper, you are simply going to demolish everyone. You'll be doing true damage to squishy ad-carries as well as doing a good amount of damage to tanks as well.

Immediately after buying my Last Whisper, I purchase Ionian Boots of Lucidity. This is because CDR is /so/ vital on Jayce that is completely necessary to. His sieging and poking is just much, much more powerful with it.

I then pick up the largest flat damage item in the game The Bloodthirster. I'm already set on armor-penetration as well as cdr so now it is time to stack on the damage. I then add even more damage and armor penetration by completing The Black Cleaver. This item has fantastic synergy with Hyper Charge because it will give you three incredibly quick stacks, bringing your armor penetration on a target to be at least 55%. That is a lot.

Then, I'll pick up my Greater Vision Totem. Sometimes I'll get it earlier than now if my team is forcing a lot of baron dances (and if the gold amounts work out so I'm not losing out on a lot of damage to do so). I get the pink ward trinket because it's just fantastic. A free pink-ward every 3 minutes helps my team so much and gives us a lot of map control.
There are a few different choices for your very last item. Typically, I'll get Infinity Edge because with Hyper Charge I am actually using a lot of auto-attacks and if a 400 damage auto-attack (amplified to 130%) crits for 250%. Wowza. That is a ton of damage. Just a great final item.

The Bloodthirster is much more meh as a last item compared to Infinity Edge. It is a bit cheaper as well as gives you more poking/sieging damage with added sustain so it has its perk but is more situational as a last item.

Guardian Angel is the final option that I would get only if I am getting extremely focused in team-fights. Such as going against a Vi and Ahri combo that was giving me a little bit too much attention is when I would pick up GA as my last item.

Match-Ups

Jayce is an extremely safe champion who doesn't really have any counters. There are some match-ups though, which I will discuss below, that are extremely hard to go anything above even though.

Orianna: I hate this champion. Unless you get a lot of jungler help early she will control the lane at all times because she is just much more well rounded than you are and trades better.

Gragas: Although you can bully him pretty hard for the first couple of levels, once he gets on his feet with all three abilities he is really scary. He is so much all-in potential and stickiness that is just really hard to deal with. Be very careful of his body-slam and getting ulted into him.

Laning

Jayce's laning is both extremely powerful and safe at the same time. For those of you who are reading this and also have experience playing Lux, it plays out very similarly. You have a lot of strength with your auto-attacks and poking with Shock Blast. Be very aggressive at earlier levels with a lot of trading. Due to your Doran's Blade, you should be coming out on top in these trades. Be careful of playing /too/ aggressive as you are very vulnerable to being ganked while playing forward. Remember to use your trinket ward and always play more towards the side of the lane wherever you place it.

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Lots of poking and trading is pretty much all you will be doing unless you see an opportunity to all-in. You can do some Shock Blast and Acceleration Gate combos but do them sparingly until you get your first blue buff as you do not have the mana pool nor regeneration to be spamming it at all. You won't be roaming much as Jayce just because you don't have a real ultimate or any extra oomph at any of the early levels. Jayce doesn't really have a level that he reaches early on that gives him a large boost to damage like say an Ahri who just hit 6. Play safe, farm, trade a lot, poke, and look for all-in opportunities. You scale very, very well into the mid and late-game so don't play too risky.

Mid-Game

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Mid-Game for Jayce is a very strong point for him. Once his core is complete, you start hitting like a truck. Sieging and objective dances is what your team should be focusing on. Make sure to keep all the lanes pushing to put more pressure on the enemy team as well as giving you more map control. If a team-fight does break out, unless they have a squishy target on their lonesome, you will be mostly near your ad-carry helping peel for them with Thundering Blow and damaging the tanks with your abilities. With all of the armor penetration you have you will hurt tanks very dearly so don't underestimate your damage.

For added emphasis, always play Jayce like an ad-carry unless their ad-carry is just standing on their own picking their nose. Then by all means, combo them, turn on Hyper Charge, change stances, put on that lightning, and jump ontop of them and use Thundering Blow for the execute. Otherwise, you play scared. Very scared. You're standing in the back playing like the squishy champion you are doing a decent amount of sustain damage with strong burst. Don't play too cocky or you will evaporate off the map never to be seen again.

Dance at objectives, siege, and just overall poke your little Jayce heart out.

Late-Game

Late-Game isn't much different than mid-game for your team's objectives but now Jayce truly becomes a god. His auto-attack damage with Hyper Charge is through the roof. He hits like an ad-carry with utility and poke and it is just so satisfyingly disgusting to play. He is just /so/ strong at this point in the game. Just be careful not to get caught or the game is over. You are extremely squishy and vulnerable to be getting caught so play and position very smartly.

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